Switzerland

The musical life in Switzerland is diverse and of a high level, but World-wide popular composers of Swiss origin are few. The most distinguished among them, Arthur Honegger and Frank Martin, have lived abroad for a long time – Honegger nearly all his years of life. On the other hand, the beautiful and prosperous country attracted foreigners. Wagner, Stravinsky and Hindemith resided for some years in Switzerland and Mendelssohn, Brahms and R. Strauss spent several holidays there.

The Confederatio Helvetica is multilingual. A majority of over 60% speaks Swiss German (an umbrella term for a wide diversity of dialects). Their cantons form the first section (ch1). In the cantons of ch2, Latin languages are spoken: Romansh in Graubünden, Italian in Ticino and French in the West.

Liechtenstein is an independent princedom but closely linked with Switzerland.